On Ranting

I can hardly believe how angry I got in my last post. It is Lou Dobbs, well not just Dobbs he is just a mouth piece, rather it is the entire notion that a country built on immigration, the wealthiest country in the world, one of the largest both in population and geography, does not have the ability to take in a little cultural diversity. Now lately Dobbs has had a LASER like focus on illegal immigration to the exclusion of almost all other events, but I recall the first time I heard the Roosevelt quotation was from Mr. Dobbs. To an extent I agree with the guy that immigration should be done the legal way, but it seems to me that if you want to grow and economy and grow a country the way to do it is get more people. Making rules and making immigration difficult is closing a door, and doors have a way of becoming symbolic for a national state of mind.

As for concerns of a country becoming a "Polyglot boarding house", well that seems to be the issue of the very insecure. Only a people worried about their place in the World should concern themselves with national languages or a national culture.

Anyway I just felt I should explain why I got into such a tizzy the other day, I suspect cabin fever may have also played a roll in that.

On an unrelated note, I saw Valkyrie on Boxing day. It occurred to me, that even had the officers succeeded in their little coup d'etat, the allies were dead set on the unconditional surrender of Germany long before July of 1944. I think as early as 1942 the allies agreed that this time the war would continue until the bitter end. On the other hand, had the coup succeeded, then the officers might have surrendered and at least put an end to the war nearly a year sooner.

I recall when I was in High School I read in the Globe and Mail that one supply teacher asked his history students about some aspect of World War II and after much probing discovered that these students Toronto High School students did not know who Roosevelt was, Churchill vaguely and Hitler was a name they had heard of. I wonder sometimes, one day will Hollywood fill the roll of public school? But will students be able to think critically about things if they learn history through film? After all Titanic does not bother to connect the dots to Valkyrie, but the dots are there.

Speaking of such things, it occurs to me, many comments in the main stream have compared the current economic conditions to those of October 1929. I wonder, are we in fact entering the world of 1914 all over again? Is society about to be reborn in an orgy of fire? One should also recall that it was 1913, I think, that Wilson enacted the first Income tax in the United States and thus began the transition to our modern banking system.

I read a description someone had of the effect World War One had on the middle class of Europe, it was like they were dancing and someone removed the floor from under them, they tried to hold their place with nothing hold them up. Inflation robbed the middle classes of their savings and destroyed their income. I surely hope that this is just a repeat of 1989, not 1929 and certainly not 1914.